Philosophical Archetype Quiz

[DarkIntruder]

Subjectivity = 68%, Objectivity = 81%

"You are an eclectic who is not quite at home in any historical period of philosophy. Your approach to philosophy is generally opposed to that of the Medievalist, and friendly to both the Modernist and the Postmodernist, yet still critical of both."


Yay for being unquantifiable. Although my philosophical viewpoint is opposed to the Medievalist, it's ironic that my overwhelming area of interest is in Medieval history, and I can mostly distance myself from any bias towards it. I guess it just means I can look at all things objectively, as well as subjectively.

[Graybeard]

A flaw in the construction of this quiz, methinks, is that it fails to put enough partition between one's approach to "philosophy" and one's approach to "religious beliefs" -- and they are not the same thing. Strongly held religious beliefs, which I for one happen to have, impel answers to some of the questions that would be quite different if the question was concentrating purely on the secular side of life. A quiz as short as this one can't hope to capture some of the subtleties. Just developing all the things surrounding the concept of "free will" would probably take about 20 questions, and without them, trying to distinguish among the different approaches to the subject, in a way that helps place one's philosophy in the realm of philosophy, isn't gonna be easy.

That said, I don't think I could write a better quiz for the purpose, so what the hey.

[Imp-Chan]

So all this discussion of philosophy brings to mind a question that I was discussing with my father at dinner the other night (for those who know my father, that sentence says quite a lot already).

Something which I find is almost always true of my personal approach to the world is a tendency to switch between micro and macro views. I feel that I often take this to wild extremes, going from utterly self-oriented evaluations of events to wildly universal evaluations wherein humans are just tiny moving specks in a very large very complex picture... however, I rarely pause in my rapid zooming out to appreciate the picture from anywhere in the middle, and having gotten all the way out to that big picture I find it impossible to really value the middle. My father does the same micro/macro thing, but to a much lesser degree, and he dwells comfortably in the middle ground of societal big pictures (in other words, he identifies as part of the groups: Human, American, Male, etc. etc. etc. and considers that identity valuable while evaluating events and making decisions for the future).

His argument, roughly summarized, is that seeing that middle ground is necessary for involvement in society as a whole (particularly as it pertains to politics and social change). He believes that paying attention to and acting upon the needs of society and the human world at large in addition to your own needs is important and valuable, and fulfills a greater responsibility.

My argument is that in focusing on the really big picture one realizes that there's no real intrinsic value to the actions of society on a cosmic scale, all such assignments of value are purely personal, and therefore actions need not be perceived as holding positive or negative value, since in wider truth they have none. In other words, our actions may change the big picture, but it's still just a picture and it doesn't matter what it's a picture of, except to us as individuals in whether or not we happen to like it.

I know next to nothing about philosophy or the history thereof, and I'm not sure if this would be a philosophical question so much as it is a question of approach, but I'm curious. What does everyone else think?

^-^'

[Vavrek]

I respect and appreciate your father's argument, Impy. However, I like your argument. Yes, yes, there's a great big society out there. But personally, I only care for a small subset. My friends, my family, myself... That's the micro scale. On the macro scale, you have the issue of personal principles. What I concern myself with is evaluating my beliefs on the macro scale and figuring out how to apply those on the micro scale... or taking experience from the micro-level and extending it, figuring out a macro-level personal principle from it.

But, it's late and I should be sleeping. More later, if I find this thread again and can think of it.

[mindstalk]

Generalizing wildy, perhaps inaccurately:

Impy, you sound like an Epicurean. "atoms and the void" big scale, "me and my friends in this garden" small scale, avoiding politics on the middle scale. The last bit struck me as a flaw, even as a kid. There's no intrinsic value on a big scale, no, but our personal value on the small scale only gets to exist because it's embedded in a middle scale which is providing food, law, medicines, etc. So ignoring it seems not just self-oriented but selfish and short-sighted. Happily for me, I can look back to before Epicurus, and see Democritus saying "yes, dealing with politics sucks and is bad for your serenity, but if someone like you doesn't do it then politics will get even worse for your serenity, so suck it up."

Not that I'm any great activist or anything, but that's my personality, not my philosophy.

Civilization -- literally, as in "life in cities" -- depends on our being able to care about or value, to some degree, more than the 150 monkeys we can track in our personal lives.

"In other words, our actions may change the big picture, but it's still just a picture and it doesn't matter what it's a picture of, except to us as individuals in whether or not we happen to like it."

Right, but it *does* matter to us, and that matters, because it matters to us. And we need for there to be a picture for us to exist in to look at it.

"If nothing we do means anything, the only thing that means anything is what we do." -- Joss Whedon (Angel)

[Imp-Chan]

I think the crux of the argument is the question of responsibility. I'm in no way opposed to involving myself in the middle ground (seeing the big picture if anything makes that easier), but I'm not doing it because I feel I have a responsibility to do it or because I inherently value all the other monkeys, I'm doing it because I happen to want a specific result.

For example, take the question of "saving the planet." I believe that we're not really doing it for the planet, because the planet doesn't care what happens and the systems will run and change and so on no matter what we do. So we're really just trying to make the planet a nicer place for ourselves. The difference is that my father feels there's a responsibility for a "greater good" in saving the planet, and I feel there's no shame in saying I just happen to prefer that there be pretty trees and favorable ecosystems because it makes my life more pleasing. The same general set of actions result, it's just a question of why we engage in them.

In a similar discussion about the micro/macro views, my sister told me she thought it was evil of me not to value the middle. I have yet to decide whether I think she could be right... not really believing in "evil" as opposed to "against my personal wishes and views of what would be best" does tend to leave me with a weak argument, maybe.

^-^'

[Labrat]

Subjectivity = 37%, Objectivity = 87%- Modernist

Meh. Too many of the presented questions had no answer that fit my worldview. But this is philosophy, after all. To truely make this accurate we would need about six-billion different options on each of the questions. Needless to say, that just isn't about to happen.

[BloodHenge]

Subjectivity: 50%
Objectivity: 62%

Eclectic/Modern

Scored higher than 99% on Subjectivity
Scored higher than 99% on Objectivity

...

I have no idea what any of that means.

I can tell you that for most of the questions, I just picked the option that seemed the most like how I feel; none of them fit exactly. I agree with Graybeard that a big part of the problem is most likely that the quiz fuses philosophy and religion, and furthermore blurs the lines between philosophy and science. I personally have some strong religious beliefs, and I'm also a firm believer in the scientific method, and both of those things inform different parts of my overall philosophical outlook. But then, there are places where the two sides bleed together...

[MaryMcCray]

It is a good news to know that you have created a short and so far remarkably accurate little online quiz to categorize people as one of four philosophical archetypes, I'm really excited to take that quiz. You're absolutely right when saying that academic and career interests based on your philosophical position. More information can be also found at http://bigpaperwriter.com/blog/archetype-essay.